Open
by The Readers Muse
Summary: "He tip-toed his way forward, feeling remarkably as though he was channeling James Bond's less suave, and very much less coordinated younger brother as he very nearly fell flat on his face." - Glenn/Daryl friendship


**Disclaimer:** I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

**Authors**** Note ****#1:** I was attempting to write something fluffy after my crazy/bat shit insane/probably future axe murderer Merle one shot. And, for some reason I got _this_. Haters gonna hate! …IT IS KIND OF FLUFFY OKAY?. *facepalm* - - Adult language, Glenn/Daryl friendship.

**Authors**** Note ****#2:** Please read and review. I am excited to see what you all think. I am open to comments, advice, and constructive criticism.

**Open**

He wanted to get one thing out of the way right off the bat. He didn't _mean_ to see it. _Really._ Because contrary to what the others might have thought if they had caught him like this, bent double to peer into another man's tent, hands resting on his knees, the little hairs on the back of his neck raising as a complex swirl of emotions washed over him, hitting him with the force of a rising, ocean tide. He really wasn't one stand slaw jawed and struck dumb over just anyone. Especially of that someone just happened to be a man. A foul tempered, emotionally closed off, back country hick of a man at that.

_..A man that coincidentally also boasted a rather wicked left hook and a mean streak to match… _

Believe it or not, he'd actually been thinking about _traffic_ of all things. He was the only one left on watch and he was as bored as hell. _So__ sue __him._ He'd been keeping himself occupied by doing a ranging circuit around the inside of camp. Placating himself with the knowledge that everyone, and everything were exactly where they were suppose to be, when he'd gotten caught up in an inner debate version of what they'd come to call the: _"__What__ I__ miss__ Series.__" _

It was the game they'd all started to play, in some shape or form, as little as five or six days into the end of the world. Right around the time when they realized that A: No, this all _wasn__'__t_ going to magically blow over soon. Or B: That no, the military was _not_ going to magically show up and save them. And C: That things _weren__'__t_ getting better, they were actually getting _worse_. If that was even freaking possible…

Funny how quickly it all comes down to the little things. _The__ stupid __things_. Things like espresso, and the foam that comes on top of those extra tall, vanilla lattes he used to get from the Second Cup across the street from his apartment. Things like hot pockets and an ice cold six pack of Guinness. Like the feeling of clean skin, clean clothes, and clean sheets. Like sleeping through the mornings, and staying up late at night for no other reason then you _could_. Things like friends and coworkers, hell, he'd even go as far as to say that he missed his regular customers at work. He supposed that it all came down to human contact. _To __people__…__Living__ people._ He missed things like pedaling his bike down to the nearest park and just kicking back in the sunshine. Things like cell phones and ovens, washing machines, microwaves, and all that other shit… Oh, and the internet. He _really_ missed the fucking _internet._

Between the lot of them it often felt as though they'd covered it all. From A to Z, and that there wasn't a single thing they'd missed about how life used to be. But somehow they always managed to prove each other wrong. And inevitably, some one would butt in with something entirely new. He supposed that on one level, it was an eye opening experience to be presented with the evidence of just how much they had taken for granted. And idly, he often wondered if any of them would ever be given the chance to right that wrong..

The game would generally begin when one of them would unknowingly start. Uttering some deceptively innocent comment about something that they missed and it would all escalate from there. It was like one of those greatest hits lists they use to turn into top ten countdowns on the radio, except this list was _yours._ It was like the greatest hit list of _your_ life. The game often carried on in this way, with each of them trying to out do the other until one of them trumped them all with a real gem. In fact, if he remembered correctly, it had been T-dog that had won the last official round. Glibly blurting out the voice of Morgan Freeman when his turn had come, grinning into the fire pit as everyone cracked up, caught in the goodness of the moment as they dined on root leaf tea and roast 'varmint', as Daryl had called it. Something that he had already decided he really _didn__'__t_ want to know the origins of. Ever.

_Hell, he swore that even Daryl had cracked a smile, snorting into his strip of meat like he was holding back a laugh by the skin of his teeth…_

So, like he'd already said, he was alone and on watch. Halfway through his post and already looking somewhat wistfully at his tent, bored out of his skull as he kept an eye out for walkers. And for some reason his thoughts had strayed, and he found himself thinking about how he actually _missed_ inner city traffic. None of that free speeding bull crap you got on the highway, he meant honest to god, bumper to bumper grid lock. And while he was well aware how mental it sounded, he couldn't shake the realization that he'd give just about_ anything_ to see that traffic again.

He'd take back the two hour traffic jams, the angry shouts, rude gestures, honking horns and muted curses in a freakin' heart beat if he could. He'd take back the moments where he had gotten stuck, trolling the neighborhood for over a half an hour just to find a bloody parking space after work. He'd take back that long eight story climb as he walked up his rickety apartment steps, the smell of a dozen different cooking dinners wafting along the hallway as he made it to his door. He'd take it all back, every last frustration, every last inconvenience, every last missed signal, and girl that had put him in the friend-zone. Why? Because it would mean that things might be able to go back to the way they were _before_. Back when words like "future" or "humanity" actually meant something more to him then their official definition in some far flung dictionary. Back when there was still _people_, people to like, to argue with, to hate, or even love.

But all thoughts of irritable drivers and city traffic fled with he neared Daryl's tent. His spine stiffening with alarm as his brain realized what it was actually seeing. _Something__ wasn__'__t__ right.._ _This__ wasn__'__t__ right__… _Because the man's tent was rippling, the front flaps partially open and shifting carelessly in the late night breeze. Daryl had never left his tent like that…Not once. What was-..

The breathless silence was practically palpable as he ducked low, bending reflexively in the midnight gloom. Alert for any sign of disturbance as his eyes flicked across the entirety of camp. A dozen different scenario's filtering through his mind as his brain sorted through them, abandoning one after the other as the seconds slowly ticked past. …_Nothing__…_ After a long, tense moment he let go of an unsteady breath, his hyper vigilance stalling, trickling out of him slowly, like air leaving a balloon. If it was the Walkers, they would have heard more about it by now.

Still, he paused. Eying the gently swaying flaps like they were a riddle he could help but want to solve. It just wasn't like Daryl to leave himself so exposed…

He bit his lip, considering the odds. Shaking his head ruefully when he realized that he was effectively damned if he did and damned if he didn't. Because while he didn't want to even _imagine_ the man's reaction if he caught him the act, the flip side of the matter was that if he_ didn__'__t_ check now, he knew he'd spend the rest of the night just thinking about it.

…_Fuck it._

He tip-toed his way forward, feeling remarkably as though he was channeling James Bond's less suave, and _very_ much less coordinated younger brother as he very nearly fell flat on his face, barely missing one of the tent strings as he leapt over it just in time. Righting himself somewhat ungracefully in a barely controlled tangle of too long limbs and flopping black hair.

But whatever he'd been expecting to find when he'd crouched down and lifted up those unzipped flaps, he certainly didn't see it. Instead he looked into that dark tent and came face first with an impossibility…

Because for the first time since the irritable back country hick had joined them, the man looked almost _venerable_. His face gentle and smoothed over with sleep. Dark lashes ghosting across the pronounced hollows beneath his eyes as the man dreamed, fingers soft and almost lax as a single, dirty palm ghosted along the edges of the pillow at his side.

He smiled into the darkness. He'd never seen Daryl like this. _Open._ Relaxed.. At rest. It was a contradiction, a miscalculation, a new piece of evidence that blew all his theories right out of the water. He cocked his head as he took the man in. He wasn't even sure how to categorize it. Unable to shake the feeling that _this_ didn't exactly fit together with the nice, neatly packaged definition he had placed the man under not that long after Atlanta and the CDC.

The man breathed deeply, his breaths slow and almost thick in the close space. He blinked. But the sound drew him in anyway, and unconsciously he began to breathe in time. The rhythm almost hypnotic and the man slept on, apparently unaware that his privacy was being so grossly violated. But he couldn't find it in himself to be even one part ashamed. He just couldn't. Not when he was seeing _this_. He'd never thought of the man as gentle, at least not until this very moment. But gentle was the only word he could bring to bear. Nothing else seemed to fit.. And despite how wrong he knew it was, he decided that for this moment, and perhaps this moment alone, it was the only word he could use to describe him.

'_Oh __man, __if__ only__ the __others__ could __see__ what__ I__'__m__ seeing __now..__' _He thought with a small smile, tone caught halfway between wonder and awe as he took in the way the man shifted in place. Jean cuffs riding up on strong legs as the man attempted to burrow even deeper into the shallow confines of his sleeping bag. Looking more like a coon dog stretching out in the summer sun then anything else, as he spread out with surprising ease across the length of the small tent.

The man was sprawled out with a decisive, careful sort of grace that looked almost staged, like he had fallen asleep that way on purpose. Looking so deceptively harmless that you could almost pretend that the man hadn't offed more walkers then he could probably count...Ruthless, cold cut, and proud… He studied the man with interest, taking in every last detail as he realized the extent to which the man put prevalence on his own survival...Because Daryl's face was turned _towards_ the unzipped flap, right hand resting only inches from his Glock Seven, the safety already worrisomely switched off. Even his body lay on top of the sleeping bag rather then under it, as if at loath to hinder even a mere millimeter of his movement for the sake of comfort. It was deliberate. _Strategic._ And it was god damned smart.

…Even then he filed the observation away for future consideration. God knows _paranoid_ was just another word for _prepared_ these days….

But it wasn't until the man spoke that he realized the extent of his trespass. When it became _more_ then just a novel sight, or a moment of personal introspection. Because the man was still asleep…And he certainly wasn't talking to _him_…

"Jess.." The man breathed, the word coming out more like a blessing then anything else. As if it meant inherently more then those four, rather deceptive looking letters could ever rightly express.

"Jess.. I'm comin'…. Don't worry baby. I got 'ya." The man murmured. His fingers clenching and unclenching as he slept on, a sudden frown marring his rugged features, as if he was recalling some moment that troubled him greatly.

He sucked in an unsteady breath and held it, mind screaming at him to move, to _leave,_that _this_ wasn't meant for him to see. But for some reason the command never made it to his limbs. Getting caught somewhere in between as the older man made a small, wounded noise in the back of his throat.

"_No.._Jess.._Jess_." The man snarled. Voice breaking somewhere along the line as the woman's name got drawn out. Until it became a continuous, lilting flow that seemed to just _stretch_, expanding outwards until it seemed as though nothing else existed.

The hunter's whole body suddenly shifted in place, as if desperate to shake something away as the man's emotions widened into a yawning gyre. Whirling outwards as the moment took its toll. His crumpled face digging further into his ratty, blue pillow as if seeking to escape from it. Grief, loss, and hurt flicking across his stubble roughed face like slides going by on fast forward on a projector.

"_Jess..__" _He crooned again, eyes working almost frenetically under the thinness of his closed lids. Lips twisting as the man crushed his face even further into the pillow case, finger tips ghosting along the edge of the Glock's slick, black stock like a promise kept. Teeth worrying the edges of already split lips as the younger Dixon faced his nightmare head on.

He could almost see the moment as it happened. Watching it play out across the man's hard lined face. And for a long moment he nearly got caught in it, the despair, the loss, the love. _Everything_. What Daryl had had…What he had lost.. It was too much, the man _felt_ too much. He was too-…

He stumbled backward, nearly losing his balance as he recoiled, the violation of his presence so strong that he came back to himself in mid fall, finding himself frozen on his haunches and _still_ watching. He swallowed hard, forcing back a sudden thickness that had gotten lodged in the base of his throat. .._Jesus..._

…_He had had no idea.. Not a god damned clue.. Daryl had never said a single word about it… About loss, about what he might have had before…_

He left the tent flaps as quietly as he had come. Mind whirling as a new found understanding of both the man and his jagged edged exterior sought to take precedence over the preconceptions he'd already made. Feeling remarkably shallow for things he had simply _assumed_ about the man in the past. How much more had he seen and simply explained away? How much had the man revealed that no one had even thought twice about? Why hadn't he considered that the man might be hurting? That this infection had taken just as much from _him _as it had taken from everyone else?

But before he returned to the fire, he knelt down in front of the flaps and slowly zipped them closed. Effectively shielding both the man, and his memories away from anymore prying eyes.. Trying not to think of the thick, almost melting way the man's words had slurred together, flowing like syrup as his thick Georgian accent only deepened in sleep. Caressing the syllables of that unknown woman's name, like the soft rasp of dry lips dragging across love flushed skin…

It was two hours to dawn when Dale relieved him, joining him at the fire as he offered the man a cup of tea. And just like every morning around this time, the older man pulled out his pocket watch, humming softly to himself as he gently began winding it up, a ritual that signaled the beginning of a new day. And on impulse he asked the man the date, making his own calculations from there as he bid him good night and strolled down the uneven line of tents, all but tumbling into his bed covers when he reached his own.

It had been nearly four months since the infection had reached Atlanta. Four months of one or two meals a day, four months of trading barbs, four months of cramped quarters and standing watch. Four months of not enough, too much, laughter, tragedy, and everything else that came between. _Four __months __of __living._ But it had taken him until the night of November 5th 2011, to realize that Daryl Dixon was just as human as the rest of them.

And perhaps not so coincidentally, November 5th, was also the same night that he got his first decent sleep since the CDC. …Funny how cathartic it was to know that even the toughest, most cut throat bad ass that arguably still stalked the continental US was _just_ as human as the rest of them…

**A/N:** Please let me know what you think? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!

"_Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." - Mahatma Gandhi_


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